The Parts Men Play eBook

’That is because you are a man, and with a stranger
we have our company manners on. England is full
of bitter, resentful women, but they don’t cry
about it. That’s one result of our playing
games like boys. We learn not to whine.’

’I suppose the activities of your suffragettes
are a sign of this unrest.’

’Yes—­though they don’t know
what is really the trouble. I do not think women
should run the country, but I do feel that we should
have something to say about our ordinary day-to-day
lives. Man-made laws are stupid enough, but
a man-made society is intolerable. Just a very
little wine, please.’

For a moment there was silence; then she continued:
’Oh, I suppose if it were all sifted down I
should find that it is largely egotism on my part.’

He waited, not wanting to alter her course by any
injudicious comment.

‘Mr. Selwyn,’ she said abruptly, ’do
you feel that there is a Higher Purpose working through
life?’

‘Y-yes,’ he said, rather startled, ‘I
think there is.’

‘Sometimes I do,’ she went on; ’then,
again, I think we’re here on this earth for
no purpose at all. It often strikes me that Some
One up above started humanity with a great idea, but
lost interest in us.’

‘I think,’ he said slowly, ’that
every man has an instinctive feeling sometime in his
life that he is a small part of a great plan that is
working somehow towards the light.’

’Yes. It’s a comfortable thought.
It’s what makes good Christians enjoy their
dinner without worrying too much about the poor.’

He made no answer, though he was not one who often
let an epigram go by without a counter-thrust; but
he could see that the girl was struggling towards
a sincerity of expression much as a frightened horse
crosses a bridge which spans a roaring waterfall,
ready to bolt at the first thing that affrights it.

‘Mr. Selwyn,’ she said—­and
for the first time her words had something of a lilt
and less incision—­’do you think women
are living the life intended for them?’

‘Why not?’ he fenced.

’Well, it seems to me that when any living creature
is placed in the world it is given certain powers
to use. You saw this morning how our horses
wanted to race, and couldn’t understand our holding
them back. A mosquito bites because that’s
apparently its job in the world, and it doesn’t
know anything else. I was once told that if animals
do not use some faculty they possess, in time Nature
takes it away from them.’

‘You are quite a student of natural history,
Miss Durwent.’

’No—­but every now and then mother
unearths a man who teaches us something, like last
night.’

He acknowledged the compliment with a slight inclination
of his head. The waiter leant expectantly beside
him.

‘To descend from the metaphysical to the purely
physical,’ he said, glancing in some perplexity
at the terrific nomenclature of Monsieur Beauchamp’s
dishes, ’do you think we might take a chance
on this Poulet reine aux primeurs; salade lorette?
I gather that it has something to do with chicken.’